Doing Hard Things

I often hear my children moan when they have what they perceive as a difficult task to do, “It’s too hard!”  I’ve decided that my response to this concern will continue to be, “But you can do hard things!”  I was reminded of this as I listened to a dear friend and mentor today tell me his concerns about the entitlement mentality of so many of the young people today.  He works closely with the young adults in the Church and has for many years, and he has observed in recent times a shift in attitude.  His perception is that the prevailing attitude is one of entitlement and a repulsion to having to work hard to rightfully merit something.  But we are precisely here on the earth to do hard things; it was Satan’s plan to have us make no progress in mortality but simply return to God unchanged.  The Lord’s plan, on the other hand, is to change us wholly and completely, and the only way that can happen is if we learn to do hard things—the things the Lord requires.

            As we read the scriptures we see many instances of the Lord requiring difficult tasks of His children that He surely could have avoided demanding if He had wanted to.  The Book of Mormon starts out in the very beginning with an example of this.  After Lehi left Jerusalem with his family, He received a difficult task from the Lord for his sons to accomplish: they were to return to Jerusalem to get the plates from Laban.  Lehi lamented to Nephi, “And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord” (1 Nephi 3:5).  Nephi had the faith to do what the Lord required, even though it was indeed hard, and he continued to do that all throughout their journey to the promised land.  Nephi was so strong spiritually because he was willing to do hard things.  Abraham was another prophet who received hard requirements from the Lord, including the command to offer Isaac as a sacrifice as well as the need to wander thousands of miles through Canaan and Egypt and back.  But he understood the plan of salvation and why he had to do hard things, for the Lord had told him, “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25).  In our generation when the Saints were suffering in Zion, the Lord reiterated this requirement for us to be tested even as Abraham was: “Therefore, they must needs be chastened and tried, even as Abraham, who was commanded to offer up his only son” (D&C 101:4).  These are no idle words, and so many of the faithful in the past have suffered so intensely that it is hard not to question how the Lord could have required such difficult things of them.  As Joseph Smith was suffering in Liberty Jail, with thousands of Saints freezing and  unprepared in a winter exodus from Missouri, he cried out to the Lord, essentially asking why they had to endure such hard things.  The Savior’s response was in part: “All these shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7).  The Lord requires hard things of us, sometimes excruciatingly hard things of us, because it is ultimately for our good.  That thought provides little comfort in the moment of trial, but we can at least remember that we never have to pass through the great difficulties of mortality alone.  With faith, we can say as Paul (of whom the Lord said, “I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake,” and surely he did indeed suffer greatly), “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).  We can indeed do hard things—with Christ.